The small state of Lebanon lies at the
eastern end of
the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered on the west by the Mediterranean,
on the north and east by Syria, and on the south by Israel.

It has an area of 3,600 square
miles about half the
size of Wales or Albania, and a population of some 3 million about the
same as that of Wales and of Albania.

Its principal towns are Beirut
(the capital, with
a population of 700,000), Tripoli and Sidon.

The People

Ethnically, the people of Lebanon are
almost exclusively
Arab, and 93% of the population speak Arabic, which is the official
language.
There are four main religious communities: Maronite Christian
(adherents
of an Eastern rite church attached to Rome), Sunni Moslem, Shia Moslem
and Druze Moslem. 300,000 Palestinian refugees form 10% of the
population.

The Economy
40% of the population are engaged in
agriculture, producing
fruit, tobacco, and cotton. However, agriculture furnishes only 9% of
gross
national product. Lebanon's economy is primarily financial and
commercial,
popular with the capital of other Middle Eastern countries because of
its
completely laissez-faire economy and the secrecy of its banking system.
There is a small-scale textile industry, and a transit trade in crude
oil,
Lebanon being the terminal for a pipeline of the British-owned Iraq
Petroleum
Company (a subsidiary of Shell) which has a refinery at Tripoli, and
another
of the US-owned Trans-Arabian Pipeline Company (a subsidiary of
Aramco),
which has a refinery at Sidon.
Class Divisions
The main social classes in Lebanon are:

1) a comprador capitalist
class, drawn mainly from the Christian
community,
closely linked with and dependent upon foreign - principally United
States
-- imperialism;
2) a landlord class, drawn mainly from the Sunni Moslem community;
3) a national bourgeoisie, drawn mainly from the various Moslem
communities;
4) a peasantry, drawn mainly from the Moslem communities; and
5) a small working class numbering 100,000, drawn mainly from the
Moslem
communities and involved mainly in the oil-processing and textile
industries.

History to 1944

From the 16th century, Lebanon formed
part of the Ottoman
Empire until the First World War. In 1918 Allied forces seized Lebanon
and in 1923 it was made, like the adjoining state of Syria, a French
mandate.

During the Second World War,
when the French authorities
in Lebanon declared in favour of Vichy, British troops occupied the
country.

In November 1941 the French
Committee of National
Liberation declared Lebanon to be an independent state, and the
Republic
of Lebanon was proclaimed in January 1944. After the war, however, the
French government delayed removing its troops, which finally departed
only
in December 1946.

The State

The Constitution is one of
"parliamentary democracy".
The Head of State is a President who is elected by a single-chamber
elected
National Assembly. However, this body is elected under laws which give
the economically dominant Christian community a majority of seats -
based
on the ratio of Christians to Moslems in the population (6:5) as shown
in the (last) Census of 1932.

The domination of the state by
the Christian community
- in practice by the predominantly Christian comprador capitalist class
- is reinforced by an unwritten convention agreed between
representatives
of the four religious communities in 1943. By this convention it was
agreed
that the President should always be a Christian, the Prime Minister a
Sunni
Moslem and the Speaker of the National Assembly a Shia Moslem.

The interests of the comprador
capitalists and landlords
are represented politically by the National Liberal Party (a vehicle of
the financial groups around the Chamoun family) -and the Phalangist
Party
(named after Franco's fascist party and a vehicle of the financial
groups
around the Gemayel family).

The most progressive of the
political parties are
- the Progressive Socialist Party, founded in 1947 and now led by Walid
Jumblatt (a Druze), and the revisionist Lebanese Communist Party, which
represent the interests of the national bourgeoisie.

The officers of the army are
drawn predominantly
from the politically and economically dominant Christian community,
while
the rank and file are divided into separate units on a religious basis.
This brought about a break-up of the army in the civil war of 1975-6,
when
masses of soldiers deserted to different private militias. From that
time
the army, and the central state apparatus, has been almost impotent.
The
elections due in April 1976 were postponed because of the civil war,
and
no elections have been able to be held since. Unable to collect taxes
over
most of the country, the state has become increasingly dependent upon
foreign
aid - principally from Britain, Saudi Arabia and the United States: in
the first half of 1984 alone Lebanon's balance of payments deficit
stood
at $700 million. Effective political power is exercised locally by:

1) the foreign occupying forces of Syria in the north and
west;
2) rival para-military forces armed and financed by the neighbouring
states of Iraq, Israel and Syria;
3) rival para-military forces armed and financed by the political
parties
of the Lebanese ruling classes - the Tigers of the National Liberal
Party
and the Lebanese Forces of the Phalangists; and
4) a para-military force of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (the
Palestine Liberation Army), armed and financed by certain Arab states
(principally
Syria,. Libya and Saudi Arabia) and (since July 1972) by the Soviet
Union.
The PLO contains factions financed and armed by, and subservient to,
different
states, a number of which are mere small terrorist organisations.

The Formation of Israel
The state of Israel came into being in
May 1948 as a
result of the desire of the Western imperialist powers to establish a
"fifth
column" in the heart of the Arab world in the form of a small Jewish
racist
state which would be dependent for its continued existence on these
Powers.

It was proclaimed following a
resolution of the United
Nations General Assembly of November 1947, which recommended that the
British
mandated territory of Palestine should be partitioned into a Jewish
state
and an Arab state. Zionist terrorist gangs drove many Arabs from the
territory
of the Jewish state, and since then Israel has extended its territory
in
a number of phoney wars to embrace the whole of Palestine, an area four
times that allotted to the Jewish state in the original Partition Plan.

A large proportion of the Arab
population of Palestine
became homeless, stateless refugees in neighbouring Arab states, mainly
Jordan and Lebanon.

The US Military Intervention in Lebanon

In January 1957 US President Dwight
Eisenhower proclaimed
a new American policy, known as the "Eisenhower Doctrine".
This
provided for US military aid and the use of US troops to "protect"
Middle
Eastern states threatened with "aggression".

By the late 1950s popular
dissatisfaction in Lebanon
with the corrupt regime of President Camille Chamoun and its policy of
subservience to United States imperialism had been reinforced by
dissatisfaction
with the whole state system, particularly since (although no new census
was taken) the Moslem communities now formed a majority of the
population.

In May 1958 this
dissatisfaction broke out into a
mass insurrection against the regime. When, in July, the armed forces
of
the state proved unable to suppress this and a national-democratic
revolution
in neighbouring Iraq had toppled the feudal pro-imperialist regime of
King
Feisal, Chamoun appealed to the United States for military
intervention,
and 14,000 US troops were landed in Lebanon (British troops being
simultaneously
landed in Jordan).

Under American pressure, the
domination of the state
by the Christian comprador capitalist groups was saved by securing the
replacement of Chamoun as President in September 1958 by the
Commander-in-Chief
of the Army, General Fuad Chehab, who appointed a new government giving
Ministerial posts to leaders of the opposition. The American forces
withdrew
from the country in October.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation

6 Fatah (Conquest) was formed
among these refugees
under the leadership of Yassir Arafat with the declared aim of
establishing
a Palestinian state in traditional Palestinian territory by means of
armed
struggle.

In May 1964, on the initiative
of the United States,
a rival Palestinian organisation, the Palestine Liberation
Organisation,
was set up under the leadership of the demagogic mercenary Ahmad
Shuqairi.
This served, objectively the interests of the Western imperialists and
Israel by putting out statements that its aims were "to drive the Jews
into the sea".

Growing opposition among
Palestinians to the policies
of the PLO enabled Fatah to join that organisation in February 1969.
Becoming
by far the largest body in it, Fatah's policies became the policies of
the PLO and its leader, Arafat, became the leader of the PLO.

Arab public opinion forced the
rulers of neighbouring
Arab states -particularly Jordan and Lebanon - to permit the guerilla
units
of the PLO to train in and operate from their territory against the
Israeli
state which occupies Palestine contrary to many UN resolutions.
However,
their lack of real interest in the formation of an independent
Palestinian
state, their general subservience to Anglo-American imperialism and
their
fear of reprisals from the powerful military machine built up by United
States imperialism in Israel resulted in efforts by their armed forces
to seek to destroy the Palestine Liberation Army within their
territories,
as was done by Jordan in 1970-71.

The Civil War in Lebanon

eginning of the '70s, the
Palestinians in Lebanon
were cooperating with the Progressive Socialist Party to mobilise the
masses
of the Lebanese people for radical political change. Seeing the
developing
threat to their political and economic power, in April of 1975 the
comprador
capitalists set their the Phalangist militia to open civil war against
the Palestine Liberation Organisation. However, in spite of large-scale
aid from Israel, by June of the following year (1976) the position of
the
Phalangists had become desperate. In these circumstances, 20,000 Syrian
troops invaded Lebanon and fought the Palestinian militia alongside the
Phalangists.

Despite heroic resistance by
the Palestinians, the
Phalangists succeeded in smashing their way into the last strongpoint,
Beirut, and the civil war, which had lasted a year and seven months and
cost 44,000 lives, came to an end in November 1976.

"Operation Litani"

In March 1978, with the aim of
destroying the Palestinian
bases in south Lebanon, Israeli forces invaded the country and occupied
its southern part up to the river Litani.

The Security Council of the
United Nations called
upon Israel to withdraw its forces, and set up a United Nations Interim
Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to confirm the withdrawal and restore the
authority
of the Lebanese government in the south. The Israeli forces withdrew
back
to the frontier in June, but left a Lebanese puppet force, later known
as the South Lebanon Army, in occupation of the border area. In April
1979
the leader of this force, Major Sa'ad Haddad, proclaimed the zone an
"independent
Lebanese state".

The Effect of Camp David

In September 1978 came the
American-sponsored Camp David
summit agreement for an Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. This agreement
was
opposed not only by the Palestinians but, as a result of public
pressure,
by Syria, (now dependent economically and militarily upon the Soviet
Union)
and this common opposition brought about a reconciliation between the
Palestinians
and the Syrian occupation forces in Lebanon.

In this new situation and with financial
help from
Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union, the Palestinian para-military units
in Lebanon were able to rebuild themselves into a new well-armed force
of 15,000 and in January 1980 Syrian forces withdrew from part of
Lebanon,
handing over control to the PLO, which established its effective
control
over most of the country except for those areas, such as East Beirut,
controlled
by the Phalangists.

"Operation Peace for Galilee"
In June 1982 an attempt was made on the
life of the
Israeli Ambassador in London. On this pretext Israel invaded Lebanon
again
in an operation called "Operation Peace in Galilee". This had the aim
of
destroying completely the Palestine liberation forces in Lebanon (they
had, as has been said, been driven from Jordan in 1970-71).

Although Syria had been
informed prior to invasion
that the operation was not directed at its forces, some conflict with
Syrian
forces did occur. On the sixth day of the invasion, by which time its
armed
forces had lost 650 killed and 500 armoured vehicles, Syria signed a
cease-fire
with Israel.

By this time the invasion
forces were 60 miles into
Lebanon, laying siege to the Moslem area of West Beirut (where the
remains
of the PLO forces were bottled up). In August the Palestine Liberation
Organisation agreed to withdraw its forces from Lebanon under the
supervision
of a Multi-national Peace-keeping Force from Britain, France, Italy and
the United States. The evacuation was completed by the end of the
month,
and 11,000 of the PLO's fighters were dispersed to other Arab states.

In September the new
President-elect of Lebanon,
Bashir Gemayel, was assassinated at unknown hands. The Israeli forces
then
permitted Phalangists to enter two Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra
and
Shatila in West Beirut and massacre more than 800 women, old people and
children.

The Reagan Plan

In September 1982 US President Ronald
Reagan put forward
a new "peace plan' for the Middle East which envisaged the
establishment
of a "Palestinian homeland" on the West Bank of the Jordan, not as an
independent
state but as a part, with limited powers of self-government, of the
state
of Jordan, which had been since its inception a monarchist tool of
Anglo-American
imperialism.

The Reagan Plan was opposed by
the right-wing government
of Israel, headed by Menahem Begin, on the grounds that it would
involve
the surrender of Israeli-occupied territory, and by the PLO on the
grounds
that it did not provide for an independent Palestine state. It was
nominally
opposed by most Arab states, except for Egypt and Jordan

The Israeli-Lebanese Agreement

The heavy losses sustained by Israel in
its invasion
of Lebanon (583 killed) - losses which continued to mount daily as a
result
of Lebanese and Palestinian guerilla warfare against the occupation
forces
- combined with the obviously aggressive character of the war, had
stimulated
the growth of a peace movement in Israel itself.

The atrocity against the
Palestinian camps brought
to a head public opposition to the Israeli invasion, not only in other
countries but in Israel itself .

In these circumstances, in May
1983 the United States,
Israeli and Lebanese governments signed an agreement providing for the
withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanese soil, combined with the
recognition
of a "security zone" in the south to prevent the infiltration into the
area of Palestinian fighters.

This agreement, supported by
Egypt and Jordan, was
opposed by the PLO, Libya and Syria, the last-named declaring that its
troops would remain in Lebanon. It was also opposed as a treacherous
surrender
of Lebanese sovereignty to a foreign power by progressive Lebanese
political
forces, which formed a National Opposition Front (later called the
National
Democratic Front) headed by Walid Jumblatt of the Progressive Socialist
Party and George Hawi of the Communist Party.

In February 1984 President Amin
Gemayel (who had
taken the place of his assassinated brother) was forced by this
pressure
to revoke the agreement.

Opposition at home to Israel's
aggressive war in
Lebanon was one of the factors responsible for a change of government
in
the election of July 1984. The ultra-right Likud Front, headed by
Menahem
Begin, lost its position as the largest parliamentary group to the
Alignment,
dominated by the Labour Party, which campaigned on withdrawal of
Israeli
troops from Lebanon and acceptance of the Reagan Plan. Following the
withdrawal
of the Multi-National Peacekeeping Force, the new government, with a
Prime
Minister (Shimon Peres) drawn from the Labour Party, unilaterally
announced
in January 1985 that it would withdraw its troops from Lebanon, and
this
-was completed-by June - except for the southern zone, where control
was
handed once again to the puppet South Lebanon Army, headed, since the
death
of Haddad in January 1984, by Major -General Antoine Lahad.

The Rebellion within the PLO

Although Fatah rejected the Reagan Plan
in June 1983,
Arafat went to Jordan to discuss its implications with King Hussein and
this was used by the Syrian government as a pretext for sponsoring in
Lebanon
a rebellion of pseudo-left forces within the PLO against its
leadership.
By December 1983 the rebels had gained control of all PLO bases in
Lebanon
and the forces loyal to Arafat had been forced to withdraw to other
Arab
states.

The Syrian Occupation of Beirut

Meanwhile in the capital, Beirut, bloody
battles between
rival militias, and the siege of the Palestinian refugee camps there,
continued
and in February 1987 Syria used the pretext of "the need for
law
and order" to occupy the capital.